Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of alternate infrastructure to replace copper wire ADSL systems.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

ADSL relies on the copper based Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The PSTN is increasingly unreliable and prone to failure. In 2024/25 there were over 2,600 major incidents on the PSTN, each affecting 500 or more customers. This is why industry have taken the decision to upgrade to fibre-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

VoIP technology is more resilient, more secure, enables better quality phone calls, and can be used to block scam calls. Fibre cables are less prone to damage during severe weather events, have a 50% lower fault rate than copper, and are more energy efficient. Fibre based digital infrastructure offers customers significantly faster speeds than copper-based ADSL.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the BBC proposals in, A BBC For All, that all future Non-Executive Director (NED) appointments to the Board should follow a defined, transparent and consistent process.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The government welcomes the BBC’s response to the Charter Review Green paper titled ‘A BBC for All’, and will consider its contents within Charter Review policy development.

The government launched the BBC Charter Review last year. The Green Paper set out our ambition for the BBC across a range of topics. This includes considering reforms to the BBC’s governance structures, length of its Royal Charter and obligations to share information. We are also exploring ways for the BBC to engage audiences and reflect public views. On funding, the Green Paper makes clear that we will need to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the BBC’s independence and enabling sufficient levels of oversight of public money.

We welcome the BBC’s response to the government’s Green Paper public Consultation. We will review their response, alongside other responses from the public and stakeholders to the consultation to help ensure we consider a wide range of voices and views on the future of the BBC. These will inform policy decisions for the next BBC Royal Charter, which will be set out in a White Paper, expected to be published later this year.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the BBC proposals, A BBC For All, to ensure the BBC’s funding level is subject to effective and transparent scrutiny.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The government welcomes the BBC’s response to the Charter Review Green paper titled ‘A BBC for All’, and will consider its contents within Charter Review policy development.

The government launched the BBC Charter Review last year. The Green Paper set out our ambition for the BBC across a range of topics. This includes considering reforms to the BBC’s governance structures, length of its Royal Charter and obligations to share information. We are also exploring ways for the BBC to engage audiences and reflect public views. On funding, the Green Paper makes clear that we will need to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the BBC’s independence and enabling sufficient levels of oversight of public money.

We welcome the BBC’s response to the government’s Green Paper public Consultation. We will review their response, alongside other responses from the public and stakeholders to the consultation to help ensure we consider a wide range of voices and views on the future of the BBC. These will inform policy decisions for the next BBC Royal Charter, which will be set out in a White Paper, expected to be published later this year.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the BBC's document entitled a A BBC For All to remove a fixed expiry date on the BBC’s Royal Charter.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The government welcomes the BBC’s response to the Charter Review Green paper titled ‘A BBC for All’, and will consider its contents within Charter Review policy development.

The government launched the BBC Charter Review last year. The Green Paper set out our ambition for the BBC across a range of topics. This includes considering reforms to the BBC’s governance structures, length of its Royal Charter and obligations to share information. We are also exploring ways for the BBC to engage audiences and reflect public views. On funding, the Green Paper makes clear that we will need to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the BBC’s independence and enabling sufficient levels of oversight of public money.

We welcome the BBC’s response to the government’s Green Paper public Consultation. We will review their response, alongside other responses from the public and stakeholders to the consultation to help ensure we consider a wide range of voices and views on the future of the BBC. These will inform policy decisions for the next BBC Royal Charter, which will be set out in a White Paper, expected to be published later this year.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the BBC proposals in A BBC For All to pilot audience forums such as citizens assemblies.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The government welcomes the BBC’s response to the Charter Review Green paper titled ‘A BBC for All’, and will consider its contents within Charter Review policy development.

The government launched the BBC Charter Review last year. The Green Paper set out our ambition for the BBC across a range of topics. This includes considering reforms to the BBC’s governance structures, length of its Royal Charter and obligations to share information. We are also exploring ways for the BBC to engage audiences and reflect public views. On funding, the Green Paper makes clear that we will need to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the BBC’s independence and enabling sufficient levels of oversight of public money.

We welcome the BBC’s response to the government’s Green Paper public Consultation. We will review their response, alongside other responses from the public and stakeholders to the consultation to help ensure we consider a wide range of voices and views on the future of the BBC. These will inform policy decisions for the next BBC Royal Charter, which will be set out in a White Paper, expected to be published later this year.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the safeguards in place to mitigate racial and other bias in the use of retrospective facial recognition technology.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to conduct an inspection of police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition. The detail of the inspection and publication of the report are a matter for HMICFRS, but they will look at whether there have been or are likely to have been any wrongful arrests as a result of the use of retrospective facial recognition.

Additionally, the Home Office is aware of the risk of bias in facial recognition algorithms and supports policing in managing that risk. Manual safeguards, embedded in police training, operational practice, and guidance, require all potential matches returned from the Police National Database (PND) to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer. If the trained PND user or investigator decides a facial search image provides a potential match, this must be treated as intelligence rather than evidence and additional lines of enquiry must be undertaken before any action is taken. These safeguards have always been in place, even before the independent National Physical Laboratory (NPL) testing.

The Home Office does not issue guidance on setting algorithm thresholds. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and police forces consider the impact and equitability of facial recognition technology in line with their Public Sector Equality Duty. The threshold is set for all forces by a Chief Constable on behalf of the NPCC to balance the equitability of facial searching, and the operational imperative to find true matches where they are present on PND.

The Home Office takes the findings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) report very seriously and has already acted. The Police Reform White Paper included a commitment to invest £26m into the development and delivery of a national facial recognition system for policing using a new algorithm. The new facial recognition algorithm has been independently tested by the NPL and this showed that it can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. The new service will be operationally tested by the police in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation to inform future decisions about rolling out the new system with the new algorithm.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance is in place relating to the thresholds at which retrospective facial recognition searches of the Police National Database may be operated.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to conduct an inspection of police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition. The detail of the inspection and publication of the report are a matter for HMICFRS, but they will look at whether there have been or are likely to have been any wrongful arrests as a result of the use of retrospective facial recognition.

Additionally, the Home Office is aware of the risk of bias in facial recognition algorithms and supports policing in managing that risk. Manual safeguards, embedded in police training, operational practice, and guidance, require all potential matches returned from the Police National Database (PND) to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer. If the trained PND user or investigator decides a facial search image provides a potential match, this must be treated as intelligence rather than evidence and additional lines of enquiry must be undertaken before any action is taken. These safeguards have always been in place, even before the independent National Physical Laboratory (NPL) testing.

The Home Office does not issue guidance on setting algorithm thresholds. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and police forces consider the impact and equitability of facial recognition technology in line with their Public Sector Equality Duty. The threshold is set for all forces by a Chief Constable on behalf of the NPCC to balance the equitability of facial searching, and the operational imperative to find true matches where they are present on PND.

The Home Office takes the findings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) report very seriously and has already acted. The Police Reform White Paper included a commitment to invest £26m into the development and delivery of a national facial recognition system for policing using a new algorithm. The new facial recognition algorithm has been independently tested by the NPL and this showed that it can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. The new service will be operationally tested by the police in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation to inform future decisions about rolling out the new system with the new algorithm.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Idemia facial recognition algorithm for Home Office strategic facial matching will be rolled out across police forces.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to conduct an inspection of police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition. The detail of the inspection and publication of the report are a matter for HMICFRS, but they will look at whether there have been or are likely to have been any wrongful arrests as a result of the use of retrospective facial recognition.

Additionally, the Home Office is aware of the risk of bias in facial recognition algorithms and supports policing in managing that risk. Manual safeguards, embedded in police training, operational practice, and guidance, require all potential matches returned from the Police National Database (PND) to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer. If the trained PND user or investigator decides a facial search image provides a potential match, this must be treated as intelligence rather than evidence and additional lines of enquiry must be undertaken before any action is taken. These safeguards have always been in place, even before the independent National Physical Laboratory (NPL) testing.

The Home Office does not issue guidance on setting algorithm thresholds. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and police forces consider the impact and equitability of facial recognition technology in line with their Public Sector Equality Duty. The threshold is set for all forces by a Chief Constable on behalf of the NPCC to balance the equitability of facial searching, and the operational imperative to find true matches where they are present on PND.

The Home Office takes the findings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) report very seriously and has already acted. The Police Reform White Paper included a commitment to invest £26m into the development and delivery of a national facial recognition system for policing using a new algorithm. The new facial recognition algorithm has been independently tested by the NPL and this showed that it can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. The new service will be operationally tested by the police in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation to inform future decisions about rolling out the new system with the new algorithm.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to determine the number of people who may have been wrongly arrested or questioned by police as a result of incorrect facial recognition matches produced by the Cognitec FaceVACS-DBScan ID v5.5 software used on the Police National Database.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to conduct an inspection of police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition. The detail of the inspection and publication of the report are a matter for HMICFRS, but they will look at whether there have been or are likely to have been any wrongful arrests as a result of the use of retrospective facial recognition.

Additionally, the Home Office is aware of the risk of bias in facial recognition algorithms and supports policing in managing that risk. Manual safeguards, embedded in police training, operational practice, and guidance, require all potential matches returned from the Police National Database (PND) to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer. If the trained PND user or investigator decides a facial search image provides a potential match, this must be treated as intelligence rather than evidence and additional lines of enquiry must be undertaken before any action is taken. These safeguards have always been in place, even before the independent National Physical Laboratory (NPL) testing.

The Home Office does not issue guidance on setting algorithm thresholds. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and police forces consider the impact and equitability of facial recognition technology in line with their Public Sector Equality Duty. The threshold is set for all forces by a Chief Constable on behalf of the NPCC to balance the equitability of facial searching, and the operational imperative to find true matches where they are present on PND.

The Home Office takes the findings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) report very seriously and has already acted. The Police Reform White Paper included a commitment to invest £26m into the development and delivery of a national facial recognition system for policing using a new algorithm. The new facial recognition algorithm has been independently tested by the NPL and this showed that it can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. The new service will be operationally tested by the police in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation to inform future decisions about rolling out the new system with the new algorithm.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who may have been wrongly arrested or questioned by police as a result of incorrect facial recognition matches produced by the Cognitec FaceVACS-DBScan ID v5.5 software used on the Police National Database.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to conduct an inspection of police and relevant law enforcement agencies’ use of retrospective facial recognition. The detail of the inspection and publication of the report are a matter for HMICFRS, but they will look at whether there have been or are likely to have been any wrongful arrests as a result of the use of retrospective facial recognition.

Additionally, the Home Office is aware of the risk of bias in facial recognition algorithms and supports policing in managing that risk. Manual safeguards, embedded in police training, operational practice, and guidance, require all potential matches returned from the Police National Database (PND) to be visually assessed by a trained user and investigating officer. If the trained PND user or investigator decides a facial search image provides a potential match, this must be treated as intelligence rather than evidence and additional lines of enquiry must be undertaken before any action is taken. These safeguards have always been in place, even before the independent National Physical Laboratory (NPL) testing.

The Home Office does not issue guidance on setting algorithm thresholds. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and police forces consider the impact and equitability of facial recognition technology in line with their Public Sector Equality Duty. The threshold is set for all forces by a Chief Constable on behalf of the NPCC to balance the equitability of facial searching, and the operational imperative to find true matches where they are present on PND.

The Home Office takes the findings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) report very seriously and has already acted. The Police Reform White Paper included a commitment to invest £26m into the development and delivery of a national facial recognition system for policing using a new algorithm. The new facial recognition algorithm has been independently tested by the NPL and this showed that it can be used at settings with no statistically significant bias. The new service will be operationally tested by the police in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation to inform future decisions about rolling out the new system with the new algorithm.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether an impact assessment into the policy paper on Home Office immigration and nationality fees, due to increase from 8 April 2026, has been conducted.

Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Where changes to fee legislation are made, Impact Assessments are produced which identify potential impacts resulting from the changes.

The published Impact Assessment includes discussion of the impacts of the fees that are due to increase from 8 April 2026: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2026/44/pdfs/ukia_20260044_en.pdf

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (No. 2)

UK digital sovereignty strategy

Government response to Israel’s West Bank annexation plan

Found: 2025-12-16 Baroness Keeley To discuss the launch of the BBC Charter Review Ian Murray 2025-12-16 Clive Lewis

Found: